Mobile Monday New York presents Broadband everywhere, the mobile opportunity. Monday, 22 Sept 2008 at the Samsung Experience Center, 10 Columbus Circle, NYC

The current rollout of HSPA [High Speed Packet Access] is creating new business opportunities that exploit mobile broadband. The huge sales of USB modems reveal an emerging market that is different from pocket broadband on handsets. Mobile broadband is competing with WiFi due to always-connected mobility, ease of access and flat rate data plans. Carriers are developing HSPA and WiMax capabilities, deploying femtocells and partnering to provide xDSL connection to their core networks.

In Europe, the market has already transitioned from one dominated by visionary mobile broadband customers, to a mainstream market dominated by pragmatic customers. In the US, more people are using Web-friendly handsets and consuming more Web content overall, particularly content that lies outside carriers’ portals.

Meanwhile industry bodies - in conjunction with a raft of PC OEMs – are creating a new Mobile Broadband logo and branding campaign for wireless broadband in laptops, aiming to educate the public about ‘broadband inside’.

MoMo New York presents a discussion on the impacts of mobile broadband on carriers, content providers, laptop manufacturers and infrastructure vendors. We are happy to announce the following distinguished speakers:

Moderator:

• Lubna Dajani, Stratemerge

Panelists:

• Carl Taylor, Director of Applications & Services, Hutchison Whampoa Europe
• Ari Zoldan, CEO, Quantum Networks, LLC
• Robert Samuels, Director, Mobile Products, The New York Times

WiMax news has been dominated by a London research firm’s recent announcement that mobile WiMax might be dead on arrival.

“Recent events have been unfavourable toward Mobile WiMAX,” says Frost & Sullivan’s Programme Manager Luke Thomas, referring to Sprint’s delayed deployment of its commercial WiMax network. The firm then focuses on the two aspects of mobile WiMax:

“In terms of indoor wireless broadband, Wi-Fi fits well in this space and with the emergence of 802.11n, which includes MIMO, throughputs would be far better than what MobileWiMAX can deliver…With respect to outdoor mobile broadband environments, users would expect Mobile WiMAX to seamlessly hand off to cellular networks in the absence of WiMAX reception. In reality this is not possible as mobile WiMAX is not backward compatible with existing cellular technologies.” (Centre Daily)

By their diagnosis, the future of mobile WiMax seems bleak indeed. However, the image they portray may be oversimplified to WiMax’s disfavor. For instance, most next-generation broadband technologies will radically change modes of operation, making them incompatible with prior hardware. And before you ask, yes, in this club is the much-championed LTE. So in any discussion of new mobile technology, upgrading existing equipment is almost a given. It’s certainly much more of an industry-wide hurdle than, as Frost & Sullivan make it seem, an obstacle of WiMax exclusively. And already the industry is moving towards a solution, with talks of multimode.

As for the talk of the 802.11n standard of WiFi: last I heard, parts of the standard were still under patent in Australia, and requests for Letters of Assurance were ignored. That’s not a good portent for the standard’s likelihood of approval, as fast as it may be. I’d much rather look to WiMax, which is set to launch in its first large U.S. metropolitan area, Baltimore, in September.

City officials face obstacles while trying to provide municipal internet and are looking to WiMAX as the solution. In order to serve poor neighborhoods and the community at large, hundreds of cities including Hartford, Philadelphia, Houston, and San Francisco have attempted to build a free or inexpensive Wi-Fi system.

The motivation to provide universal Internet access lies in a simple fact — poorer urban residents often cannot afford the average $50 a month fee charged by cable companies and other providers. In Hartford, only 25 percent of the city’s households have an Internet connection, compared to 75 percent in surrounding suburbs. Connecticut Post

While Wi-Fi has been working great in most downtown areas where antennas and computers are in close proximity but the Wi-Fi signal is not strong enough to cover a wide area or penetrate through brick apartment buildings. Wi-Fi systems have not been delivering on its promised performance. Hartford officials have been forced to put its municipal internet project on hold and hope WiMAX will serve as an alternative.

According to Jack McCoy, chief information officer for Manchester and a member of the newly created Connecticut Broadband Coordinating Council, “WiMAX could run a citywide network. The concern is it could run into opposition from cable companies and other providers.”

In an effort to better understand the technologies behind WiMAX and the difference between Wifi and Wimax rather than just its future prospects and marketability, I am aiming to regularly post helpful definitions and answers to WiMAX-related questions that I come across. This one comes thanks to Wikipedia:

Possibly due to the fact both WiMAX and Wi-Fi begin with the same two letters, and are based upon IEEE standards beginning with 802., and both have a connection to wireless connectivity and the Internet, comparisons and confusion between the two are frequent. Despite this, both standards are aimed at different applications.

WiMAX is a long range system, covering many kilometers, that uses licensed or unlicensed spectrum to deliver a point-to-point connection to the Internet from an ISP to an end user. Different 802.16 standards provide different types of access, from mobile (analogous to access via a cellphone) to fixed (an alternative to wired access, where the end user’s wireless termination point is fixed in location.)

Wi-Fi is a shorter range system, typically hundreds of meters, that uses unlicensed spectrum to provide access to a network, typically covering only the network operator’s own property. Typically Wi-Fi is used by an end user to access their own network, which may or may not be connected to the Internet. If WiMAX provides services analogous to a cellphone, Wi-Fi is more analogous to a cordless phone.

Due to the ease and low cost with which Wi-Fi can be deployed, it is sometimes used to provide Internet access to third parties within a single room or building available to the provider, sometimes informally, and sometimes as part of a business relationship. For example, many coffee shops, hotels, and transportation hubs contain Wi-Fi access points providing access to the Internet for patrons.“

• You can find more definitions in the Wimax glossary.

WiMax, also known as IEEE 802.16, is a wireless digital communications system that is intended for wireless “metropolitan area networks”. WiMax is designed to extend local WiFi networks across greater distances, such as on a university campus.

The WiFi/802.11 wireless local area, which is the network standard, is limited in most cases to only about 100 to 300 feet; however, Wimax can provide broadband wireless access for up to 30 miles for fixed stations and 3 to 10 miles for mobile stations. WiMax allows for more efficient bandwidth use, interference avoidance, and is intended to allow higher data rates over longer distances.

The IEEE 802.16 standard defines the technical features of the communications protocol.  The WiMAX Forum offers a means of testing manufacturer’s equipment for compatibility, as well as an industry group dedicated to fostering the development and commercialization of the technology.

In the next five years, WiMax will have an enormous impact on the cellular markets, particularly that of third-world countries, as well as that of the United States. The cost-effectiveness of WiMax to that of preexisting systems is much higher. One application that can be used by cellular companies is WiMax’s ability to serve as a high bandwidth “backhaul” for internet or cellular phone traffic from remote areas back to an Internet backbone; WiMax may be an answer to reducing the cost of T1/E1 backhaul as well.

In this context, Going Wimax unleashes, explores, and explaines the Wimax Technology challenge, news and applications with Ari Zoldan, CEO and founder of Quantum Networks, a Wimax Company. You can find more definitions in the Wimax Glossary.